Marriage in San Francisco

Here are some pictures from Friday, February 19, 2004. S.F.Gate also has a wedding photos album here.

But wait, there's more... Middle America has been sending flowers to those courageous young people so intent on celebrating marriage.

"Robert Yamaguchi and Raymond Mungo were waiting outside City Hall in the cold early Friday morning when a florist clutching wedding bouquets handed them one. The outside of the accompanying envelope read, "To The Happy Couple, " and the card tucked inside said simply, "With love from Minneapolis, Minnesota."

That is so incredibly touching. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This battle over our right to marriage has percolated to the top all on its own. Most of us would probably have been comfortable leaving it sit for another year, hoping to avoid having it be a spoiler of some sort in the presidential election. We've waited a long time. We could have waited another year. However, the lines are drawn and we now have a moral compulsion to act. Americans have never been more divided on any issue since slavery. I have no doubt as to our ultimate victory, but I do not have enough confidence to think that it's going to be a quick contest and we'll win outright. After all, a woman's right to choose is still being challenged every day, every single day, and Roe vs. Wade is over 30 years old.. The Religious Right is as relentless as the Taliban in their desire to enslave us in their bigotry. I know that's rather dramatic, but when's the last time you saw demonstrators at someone's wedding? How many funerals have you seen picketed other than Matthew Shepherd? These people have us in their cross hairs and are as determined as the Nazis were in Germany in the 1930s. This is not the final battle, merely one in what promises to be a long and sometimes exhausting campaign.